


Bittersweet

by perryvic



Category: Elenium/Tamuli Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: F/F, F/M, Murder, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic
Summary: She had kept the puzzle bottle with her ever since, the perfume long since gone. Now she used it to contain the power of life and death.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



 All things considered, Arissa felt that she would probably hand Zemoch over to some sort of functionary when she was Empress of the World. It appeared constantly dreary as a country, and smelled dank though  the opulence of the city and the Temple of Azash was more suitable to her tastes. Soon she would be presented to Azash himself, into the very presence of an Elder God and she would charm and seduce him as she did everyone who stood in her way. With his insatiable lust, she was sure he would favour her, and her skills greatly.  
She looked at herself in the mirror, studying her own power for strength and constancy in her reflection. Still beautiful, still showing sensuality and raw femininity with every movement, every studied gesture creating of herself an irresistible and deliberate work of art. The emeralds perhaps this time, to sparkle with green fire; they talked of Azash’s creatures being surrounded with green light perhaps there was an affinity there she could exploit. The gold circlet to suggest a crown, the demure of the gossamer henin veil; she was creating a fantasy masterpiece – no, not just that, she was preparing for her own war.

She had seen Martel strap on his gleaming armour with a ritualised precision that seemed to offer a prayer with every movement; his days as a Church Knight etched into his very bones. When she seduced him, revealed to him his darkest desires something behind his eyes was broken every time he reached a shuddering release. A delicious vulnerability in his eyes that she relished and he asked for, practically begged her for in those climatic moments. So much for his armour, it was no match for her own.  
She started to don her attire, follow her own ritual  – fine garments in rich forest green velvet and samite, painstakingly embroidered and shot through with shimmering threads of gold. The bodice, boned and showing her assets as if they were presented as choice dish, enhanced with the iridescence of shell beads from the Tamul Empire and glittering gems. Her girdle, filigree of gold, golden topazes sparling with amber fire – she was fit to be a goddess even to her most self-critical eye.  
Unbidden, however, she reached for the tiny metal inlaid scent bottle, designed by clever craftsman to attach with a delicate chain to belts, girdles or necklaces. Her thumb smoothed unconsciously over the surface of the etched bottle, the metal polished and the lines worn by the repetitive movement over the passing years.  
It had been with her since she had been a child – she remembered the giving of it as if it had been a story happening to someone else. In a way she had been a very different person.  
  
_She had completed her lessons while her brother Aldreas struggled through the chapters their Royal Tutor assigned. It was sunny outside and she was sure she would be allowed to ride out on Espiritus if she told her father how well she had done with her letters. She might be younger than her brother but she far outstripped him in their studies. Only seven years and she was able to do work with ease that he struggled with at eleven._  
She sighed again, more loudly this time rolling her eyes as her brother scratch, scratch, scratched across the papers with laboured strokes of his quill.  
  


_“Come on Aldreas…” she said her vow of being good and waiting eventually snapping under the strain of waiting for him to catch up. “At this rate we never will get to go riding after all.”_  
  
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he said with a bad tempered grumble. “If I get it wrong again, father will not be pleased.”  
  
“He said he would tan your hide like a common scullion,” Arissa smirked with satisfaction. Father never had to threaten her with such things. She was his little delight he said, all the more since mother had die.  
  
“He wouldn’t dare do that to me,” Aldreas said sounding a little uncertain. “I’m going to be King. “  
  
She rolled her eyes a little because Aldreas kept bringing that up which was so unfair. Everyone could see that she was the cleverest of the two of them and even her brother would admit it under protest. Mather had told her she would make a wonderful queen should anything happen to her brother and mother had never lied to her. She had always told her she was destined for great things. It was ridiculous that Aldreas was automatically going to be king just because he was a boy.  
“He would if he thought it would make you a better king,” she said innocently.  
Her brother practically gulped at that and she smothered a giggle as he bent his head to get on with his letters.  
Her amusement was disrupted by  someone clearing their throat at the door way to their chamber and she looked up and felt happiness bloom over her.  “Sir Sparhawk!” 

_Her father’s Kings’ Champion was her favourite knight of the whole court. He did not dismiss her words as girlish fancy and listened to her, and he was dark haired and handsome enough to make all maids and ladies swoon, but never once had he been lured to stray.  She was secretly convinced he was saving himself for someone worthy, now he was a widower.  Like a rapidly maturing Princess perhaps..._

__  
“Princess Arissa, Prince Aldreas,” he said. He looked very similar to an illustration of the legendary founders of the Church Knight Orders, romantic dashing hero made flesh. He smiled at them. “I bring you greetings from Chyrellos.”  
  
“My thanks Sir Knight, “ she said automatically with the correct protocol and then hugged his leg with childish enthusiasm. “Did you bring us presents?”  
  


_“When have I ever not brought you back something?” He smiled. “For our young Prince a fine Genidian blade.”_  
  
School work forgotten, Aldreas crowed over his prize, admiring the shining steel and the elaborated gold chasing on the hilt that marked it as something produced by the Genidian Knights, but it was obviously not one of their real blades for combat. Even Arissa knew it was not one crafted for battle. He barely blurted out the appropriate thanks and she tugged at the knight’s doublet sleeve. “Please Sir Sparhawk…”  
  
“For the beautiful princess, a vial of rare Rendorish perfume, so precious it was placed in a puzzle bottle,” he said presenting it with a flourish from inside his shirt. It gleamed bright and gold and was warm with his body heat. He leaned in conspiratorially “The merchant sold it to me at a fraction of its true value because he was unable to open it. But I’m sure it will present only a little obstacle to the smartest princess in all of Elenia.”  
  
She had felt a warmth pass through her at those words, her fingers already seeking for the pressure points to slide or turn or press so the lock mechanism would release… No, it wouldn’t take her long at all.  
  
She remember the perfumes exotic scent when she had triumphed over it as the most wonderful thing she had ever smelled and the satisfaction of being the only one to work out how to release the catchas a highly treasured secret. She had kept the puzzle bottle with her ever since, the perfume long since gone. Now she used it to contain the power of life and death. Such a small thing to change the course of history filled with poison, often as sweet smelling as the scent she pretended it actually was. No one ever saw the harm of leaving it on her, it was always with her now night and day bringing memories with every unconscious touch. This one was bittersweet, with a metallic undertone that rose to the back of the throat like the aftermath of battle. Not like her first choice so many years ago.

_There it was, her bribed servant having filled the bottle with the poison as she had ordered. Not that they knew that was what they were doing.  Who would suspect a ten year old princess of refilling her scent bottle with poison? Ten years old and already a woman. Her body had blossomed and suddenly eyes had been on her. Male eyes, drawn to her like a lodestar. Courtiers, servants._

_Her father._

_“So beautiful…” he’d whispered in the darkness. “How can I resist you?” His hand touching skin to skin. “What you do to me…”  
Moonlight had etched the stone flagstones in silver as she stared at them unable to resist, her body used elsewhere in some other nightmare world as something dark and terrible breathed in her ear._

_And then in the morning, she was expected to break her fast with him as if nothing had happened.  
Then, never knowing when a shadow would appear in her room, as she lay with her heartbeat pounding in her ears echoing in the silence, or masking the footsteps into her room._

_It could not be borne any longer. She would never be this helpless again, never. She had prayed to God to save her, but He seemed to be absent, or worse just watching.  She hated them all. A princess worse than the common whores on the back streets of Cimmura. At least they got paid. Tears had meant nothing to anyone. Her useless brother had just told her not to get hysterical because of her womanhood for that was apparently the only thing he could comprehend. Sir Sparhawk was not her Champion, but her brothers and he had forbidden him to act on any orders save his own. What choice did she have left?_

_This was her power, her choice that could not be taken from her. A ride to her favourite place and she would take this poison, and her life would fade leaving her a tragic heroine in the eyes of the world..  She would leave a note condemning her father and her vengeance would be public humiliation for him which was worse than death for a monarch. Let him be recorded as a perversion in the annals of history._

_It was a sunny day when she decided to do it. Planning as she had been taught by her mother before her death to find a way to enact her will no matter what.  A day beautiful and full of life but she didn’t see it as her eyes were brimful of the tears that lurked just under the surface and scattered the light in her vision. She should have been Queen rather than her useless stupid brother, she’d always helped him and the one time she needed help she had been dismissed and ignored. Her mother had told her that being ignored was tantamount to death in itself for one in their position. It was one of the only things she remembered of her. No, better death than this powerlessness, dismissal and ignominy._

_She unstoppered the puzzle bottle, the secret revealed by her shaking fingers that still possessed the mettle to push forward with her resolve. Poison, let it tear down the reputation of those who had wronged her and let them die, over and over in the wagging tongues of the people. She raised it to her lips, close enough she could smell its sickly sweet scent._  
  
“I think you’re being a bit stupid.” A voice sounded next to her, startling her enough she dropped the bottle on the grass.  
How dare this person interrupt and mock this most private moment? She opened her eyes and stared with venom at the young boy maybe a little older than herself sitting serenely on a rock watching her.  
  
“Go away... peasant! I command it!” The effect was somewhat ruined by her voice trembling. “I am your Princess!”

 _He laughed merrily. “Not my Princess, Elene.”_  
  


_It was only then she noted the exotic cast to his feature, the Styric characteristics softened somehow. There was something unearthly about his beauty and it distracted her.  
“You are on my land, therefore in my realm of power,” she said firmly, fingers scrabbling for the bottle._

_  
“Looks to me you were about to throw that power away, Princess,” he said with a shrug. “A real shame considering how powerful you really could be.”_

_“You don’t know what you are talking about!” she shouted at him. If her father knew she was consorting with Styrics, he would be livid. The thought warmed her with a flame of vengeance._

_“I don’t know what it is like to be ignored, to be passed over, to be persecuted?” He said mildly. His hair was black and glossy, his eyes deep and intense. He leaned in close suddenly towards her, his eyes mesmerizing as his voice dropped. “…to be used?”_  
  
She gasped. How could he know?

 _“You don’t know…” She choked back a sob. “You can’t..”_  
  
“Oh I think I do.” And he told her. Told her all of it, exactly as it had happened as if he was reading her mind. It was as if the wounds had been opened up again.  
“But… how… you see why I have to do this?” she said softly. “I can’t stop him.”

 _“No you can’t,” the youth said still holding her gaze. “But why do you need to give away your power like that?”_  
  
Arissa shook her head. “You don’t understand, common decency says...”  
  
He actually laughed in her face. “Common decency? There is nothing about you that is common Princess. You and I both know that!”  
  
That was true enough. The knowledge of her royal status was in the bone.  
  
“But what can I do? I’m helpless!” It cost her bitterly to admit that. She was a woman now, not a child of royal blood and her pride was adamantine in nature. “I have no weapon to wield.”  
  
“You have one of the most potent weapons of all.” The Styric boy replied. “One that could bring the most powerful men to their knees. Break your father to your will. Your very body and self.”  
  
It was a revelation akin to the stories of the saints of the Church, as if a great light had revealed a incontrovertible truth and she gasped aloud. The memory of her father’s words wondering how he could resist her, his lust for her beauty… it fitted. If he could not resist her, then she had power. Where there was power, there was control, where there was control there was power in an ever climbing spiral.  
  
It was not the decent, or noble thing, but then neither was what had happened to her. 

_“But I don’t know what to do?” she said having resolved to see where this took her. Knowledge was power and she might be praised by her quickness of mind by her tutors but they did not teach these skills._

_“I shall teach you,” the Styric boy offered and her heart pounded looking at his faint smile, his ageless eyes._

_A little overwhelmed, she nodded and said, “I don’t even know your name?”_  
  
He smiled again. “You can call me Zalasta.”  
  
She faintly smiled at the memory. How naive she had been then. Of course it had been an illusion Zalasta had cast upon himself to appear attractive and relatable to her 10 year old self. Though he had never admitted it directly she was not foolish enough to believe he hadn’t used mild compulsion spells on her  in that emotionally vulnerable time. It would be hypocritical to create a fuss considering how often she had made use of that same magical working for her own ends, and she despised the weakness she had displayed in retrospect.  But she had resolved to try his suggestions because she always had her last resort, the puzzle bottle, and there was a secret power in that knowledge constantly at the back of her mind. If her body was irresistible, then let it be the weapon she wielded, her flesh as devastating as a blades sharp edge. It had worked phenomenally well and most of the lessons with Zalasta had been surprisingly enjoyable and she had always been an exceptional student. She had half the court in her pocket within two years, with her body as her starting currency, and her father was well on her way to seeing her as the successor to the throne rather than Aldreas.  
How easy it was to step away from the pious virtues of the Church when God never stirred himself for one of even the Royal blood. How easy to embrace a way to power, and not shirk from the distasteful aspects when you were fighting to survive. In her mind it was no different to war. Men might case themselves in steel and hurl themselves blindly into blood, fire and death and there was no censure at their chosen way to power. Her battlefield was more profound, one of body, emotion and soul and no less bloody, but considered depraved and unholy because it was society that said it was distasteful and shrank away from consequences that were human frailty through and through. On this territory time and time again she proved the victor.  
  
Save against her brother’s champion, Sir Sparhawk. A bastion of virtue, he had stood as strong as a Saint, and she hated him for that, as much as for failing to be her righteous defender.  
Although there was a part of her that had been pleased somehow he had never wavered. She had never understood why. She had no doubt his son would have been the same, or perhaps in his case it was simple obliviousness considering her niece had started her own campaign around the same age that she had.

Arissa looked down, her fingers having subconsciously opened the bottle with movements ingrained. If she was of a superstitious cast she would believe that God was sending her a last hope at redemption by stirring long ignored memories. A means to turn her back on her path and recant her pursuit of power.  
  
And what then? Back to embracing ‘God’s Love’ as she was forced to do at the nunnery? She was stronger than God’s Love, she had put her mettle against it in the form of Annias, and triumphed.

They had all been so very corruptible in the end. The nuns, the priests, the vows of chastity evidently chafing at them all. Oh the Mother Superior’s horror when she heard she had corrupted even her nuns.

Poor Bethalynn, she was one she regretted. A novice with clear wide grey and green eyes that she could see in her mind’s eye, a soft voice and a gentle pure nature. They could not have been more opposite and yet some how Bethalynn was drawn to care for her.

It wasn’t feigned for the novice had not an ounce of guile or deceit in her body and it caused her endless consternation. It muddied her images of how things were, until that last night.

_“Where are you going?” Bethalynn said, her voice soft as her fair hair gleamed in the lamplight like the curls of an angel.  
“Out, away from here,” she said and exhaled. She had prepared herself of course, but tonight was the night she would pay her brother back for his neglect and ensure the throne for Lycheas. Her bottle was within fingertip reach, and she was stunning in how she looked. Either he would be exhausted or she would poison him. Or both.  If she was clever should could time it to the point of climax. _

_“You know you must stay at the Abbey Princess. It is not wise to go beyond its walls.” The sincerity was beyond doubt but Arissa just turned her head._

__  
“Go back to your dreary cell Bethalynn,” she said firmly. She found it hard to snap at her. She was like some sort of kitten or puppy with her innocent large eyes. “This does not concern you.”  
  
“I fear for you Arissa,” she said and the soft words struck her harder than any insult, any of the debasing words men used to give themselves the illusion of power when they had sex.

_“Fear for me? Whatever for? I am in no danger. These walls keep me safe.” She gestured to the stone walls dramatically._

_“But these walls..” and she lightly touched the skin of her bared arm “Do not keep your soul safe. Please, I beg of you, do not do whatever you plan tonight. Stay with me.”  
There had been a moment, a quivering moment of uncertainty. The candlelight lit Bethalynns stray hair like a fine halo holding her attention._

_She wanted to. She was sweet and beautiful but what would it mean? A life in the nunnery? A springtime love that would wilt before summer under the disapproval of all?_

_“My soul?” Her laughter was bitter and forced. “According to the abbess, that is long gone. I’m worse than useless, I taint all that come in contact with me. Be careful sweet Beth for you too are corrupted to believe you care for me.”_

_  
“There is no love that is not of God.” Such a simple phrase but it raised an impossible wild hope in her heart and mind. Maybe it could be. Maybe they didn’t have to stay, they could run together, leave behind the world that valued only her body so she mocked them with its worthlessness by offering it to all and sundry for nothing._

_“Then come with me,” she said passionately. “Come now, we will leave here and go into the world together.” It was something spontaneous and from her heart. It was a moment that hung in the balance and then she felt her heart fall as Bethalynn hesitated. There was no need to prolong the agony of it further. The crossroads in her thoughts vanished as swiftly as it had come, as did any means of finding redemption._

_“I see. Save your own soul Bethalynn and don’t worry about the state of mine. Because everything is fine as long as you are untouched and pure isn’t it?” She said with pure venom. “Untouched, untouchable, a statue of virtue..”_  
  
“Arissa, I…”  
  
“If I gave you my heart, you would curse it as diseased,” she spat out.  
  
“I care for you Arissa,” she said faintly. “More than you know. I just don’t think I can leave…here.”  
  
She turned and stared at those gray-green pleading eyes. “Then what good are you?”  
There was no answer and she left the cell unhindered with anger clasped to her bosom and murder in her mind.

What if, what if… It meant nothing. Words were empty lies, pillow talk if not backed up by action. Bethalynn had stopped eating after it became known that King Aldreas had died that night. She never spoke again.

Arissa was not even sure if she had died before they had razed the nunnery to the ground. Either way she was gone now.

It had proved only to her that she was to be her own saviour, her own defender. Even well meaning others did not have the strength to ensure her survival and success, only she could do that. She would use the tools she had, and that also included her son. Created by her, protected by her, if they were so blind that they would not give her the crown themselves she could wait and give it to her son. She did what others would not do – she had promised him power and fame and she kept her promise that she swore in blood.

So cursedly close to him being King. She should have not cosseted him and allowed him to be treated more roughly perhaps, but he became a measure of her success as well as one of the only things she could love. If he could not keep the gift he was given, that was a lesson he would have to learn himself. If she was to be a goddess, her son would have to deserve exaltation though she would give him opportunity to earn it.  
  
She stood readying herself. She had no doubt that Sparhawk would come; that was all she had heard from Martel for weeks. The man was obsessed with his brother-in-arms, his better self as he called him.  Their sides were reflections of each other, and one side or another would fall shattered.

It would not be her. Her reflection might be the queen she longed to be but Ehlana was a mere babe in experience and too tender hearted to succeed. She didn’t have ambition beyond Elenia, she had nothing that she herself had not possessed except for the love of Sparhawk. That surely would make no difference. The love of man was fickle and rooted completely in their sensual nature. There was a part of them that was slaves to their instinct for all their posturing and talk of duty to God and country and eternal love. Her mirror would soon find that out for herself when Sparhawk inevitably strayed. Ehlana did not have her skills to entice him for long that was sure enough.

Besides what would a queen be if she because a consort to a god? Then and only then would she have enough power to be safe. Power enough for her heart desire - to control anyone, to bewitch them…to stop them.

She glanced at her hand – she had undone the puzzle bottle again without thinking about it, and the scent rose up, a curious combination of musk and flowers rising from the fragrant poison.

There was always this choice as there had been through the years, one never taken but a power of life and death there at hand if she should need it. It was a bittersweet choice, but in the end it would be hers and hers alone.

 


End file.
